0:00:08.6 Dakota Pawlicki: Welcome to Today's Students, Tomorrow's Talent. Think about your local community college. What comes to mind? What image do you see? How would you describe it to a friend? If I were to go back in time, back to high school, growing up in McHenry, Illinois I'd say well my community college is McHenry County Community College, I don't know where it is and that kids who go there don't go to four-year schools. Now, granted that was a little more than 20 years ago at this point, and I've learned a lot since then. I've learned that community colleges are high quality, that they provide education and training that can lead you to transfer or to a career. And I've learned that community colleges around the country often don't tell their own story, leaving their brand identity to chance. It's a bit like the cobbler’s children having those shoes.
0:00:57.8 Dakota Pawlicki: Today we're going to talk with community colleges that are taking control of their brand identity and marketing. These folks are getting into the gritty technical work of search engine optimization, branding and converting information into mobile friendly formats. And they're working with students, staff, and community members to re-articulate what their community college is all about.
We're going to visit with Beth Elman from Iowa Lakes Community College, and Emily Cornforth from TrendyMinds about their mobile optimization and marketing efforts. We're also going to head up to Great Falls, Montana with Dr. Stephanie Erdmann, CEO of their community college to chat about how developing a mascot gave them the chance to re-envision their brand identity and connect with the community.
But to give us a bit of perspective, I've invited Mary Laphen Pope Strategy Officer at Lumina Foundation to join me first. She's been leading several efforts around the country to help community colleges improve marketing brand identity, and to take practical steps to improve their outreach to community members.
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0:02:24.4 Dakota Pawlicki: Mary Laphen Pope, thank you so much for joining us today. I know you've been quite busy since you've joined Lumina, it seems like there's not a week that goes by that I don't see your name pop up somewhere of doing some great thing. And, of course, getting out and featuring some of the great partners you've been working with. You had a pretty big part though in the million Dollar Community College challenge, and an Instagram challenge, and all sorts of other really great work. I guess just put us like way back at the highest level, out of all the things that Lumina could be focusing on, out of all the challenges, that we see in the post-secondary space, why do you think marketing, is so important for community colleges right now?
0:03:08.4 Mary Laphen Pope: Yeah, that's a good question. I think to frame it, it's helpful to think of it as a little bit bigger than marketing, so it's really the community colleges brand identity. So, it's who they are, it's how they tell their story, and it's what people are saying about them. So, if we think about this in the realm of four-year institutions, reputation is everything. I live in Tennessee and the pride folks feel for the University of Tennessee here, it's palpable. I mean, certainly on football Saturdays, but I mean, really year-round there's this sense of pride. And it's really important, but not just for four-year flagships, it's important for all of our institutions. So, as we think about our community colleges for so many years, they've served as the utility player in higher ed.
0:03:53.2 Mary Laphen Pope: They have a strong open access mission, which is super important, but in some cases, they've relied on that to expect students to just then walk in the door. So, when we look at enrollment numbers, we know that strategies just isn't quite enough anymore. Colleges need to be actively engaged with their students, and connect with their communities if they're going to bring students through the door, but then ultimately fulfill our workforce needs. And something else that I like to bring up that to me is even more important is that our students deserve it, they deserve to feel good when they're investing their time and their money. They deserve to feel welcomed on campus, they deserve to have that sense of pride, the community college where they're earning that degree or credential.
0:04:38.5 Mary Laphen Pope: We often think about community colleges as kind of like the no frills, transactional place, students come, they attend class, they go home. But we know that if students spend more time on campus when they engage, when they engage with student support services and activities, they're more likely to be successful. But we all want to spend more time at a place where we feel good, where we feel welcome and that comes through with the experience of the institution and the experience of the institution is through the brand identity, and you share your brand identity through marketing. So, it's a little bit of a roundabout way to get there, but that's why we're excited about it.
0:05:17.7 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, I like that approach. I guess one way I think about it's that you're making the presumption that the experience that someone has in a classroom, that the credential that they're earning is high quality. That the education and training that they're receiving is high quality, and yet we haven't taken the extra steps to necessarily bake that and codify it into a strong brand identity or more broadly into establishing a reputation that people then have a vehicle to communicate that experience with others. Do you think that's fair?
0:05:56.2 Mary Laphen Pope: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I think it's all about how we tell our story and how we... I think your point is well made of that. And I've had the opportunity to travel to community colleges across the country and I've seen the great work that they're doing, and I've seen that students are leaving with that, with excellent skills and high-quality skills to go into the workforce, but they're also just not telling their story. So how do we get that out there? And how do we make sure that folks know that community college isn't just the backup option and it's a great first option for many students.
0:06:30.9 Dakota Pawlicki: I wonder too, as you've started getting into this work, is it that the... Obviously community colleges, again the open access mission, some of them are tied to flagship campuses and things like that. Is it that there's also just less financial resources in comparison to their private sector partners in comparison to their four year partners in doing this kind of brand identity, marketing kind of work? Or is that not an issue?
0:07:02.8 Mary Laphen Pope: Absolutely. I think capacity, financial as well as staff capacity, I think is a huge issue. I don't think I've met anyone who works on a community college who just wears one hat, folks are always wearing multiple hats and budget's always an issue. So I think that's something that is definitely something to keep in mind, but it's also... Brand identity and how we communicate with our community is how we're bringing in students, which is ultimately tied to funding, depending on how your state funds, it's community colleges enrollment or outcomes is certainly a big piece of it. So if we don't bring students in, we won't have the funding. So, it's a bit of a chicken or the egg, but we need to make sure that we have those resources available. So, like I said, it looks a little bit different, everywhere we have some colleges that are doing a great job of making kind of the business case for this work, just to really show why, and how the work can be done in all sorts of budgets.
0:08:04.9 Mary Laphen Pope: I think that's something that has really been kind of a hallmark of this space, is that we've made a variety of different levels of budgets, into a variety of colleges. You saw the million-dollar challenge, which was great to be able to make that big of an investment, but we've also made much smaller investments, and we've seen colleges really do of tremendous work. And I think that's something especially in this digital space, that it offers us a lot of opportunity to really stretch the dollar, and think about how we are allocating the resources that we have. In some case reallocating some resources that may have gone to strategies that may not have been working as well as they could have, and thinking in some creative ways.
0:08:48.1 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, I mean, later in the show we're going to talk to Dr. Erdmann of Great Falls College who was a finalist in the One million, Dollar Challenge. We're also going to talk to Beth Elman from Iowa Lakes Community College, which also participated in one of your initiatives. Tell us about some... Again, I see your name popping up all over the place, so it seems like you've been quite busy. Tell us about some of the initiatives that you and your colleagues at Lumina have put in place to help community colleges tell their story, improve brand identity, improve SEO, and mobile optimization. What are some of the vehicles that you're using to help people get there?
0:09:25.5 Mary Laphen Pope: Yeah, so we've done a few different things. Like you mentioned the Million Dollar Community College Challenge, what that was that we, not to use the word challenge too many times, but we challenged colleges across the country to tell us how they would use a million dollars to transform their college's brand and to connect with their community. We had one winner from Network, that received a million dollars, but we also had nine finalists who took on that work over the past few years and we've seen great results. We're actually going to be releasing a two-part microsite this spring that shares not only some of the learnings from this work, but also actionable steps that community colleges can be taking again, on variety of budgets, to really get started on this work, so shameless plug to keep an eye on our website to see that microsite.
0:10:14.6 Mary Laphen Pope: Another body of work, is the small college mobile optimization grant, and these grants were really built on the idea that colleges need to connect with their potential students where they are. And for many folks where they are is on their cell phones it's in the school pickup line, it's when they're at lunch, or on their lunch break at work, but they're always on their cell phones. So how can we connect with folks where they are? So, we partnered with six community colleges across the country, and when I say across the country, I mean across the world, we work with Guam to North Dakota. So, thinking about our territories as well. And I worked with them to think about how they can better engage and streamline their enrollment process through their digital front door.
0:11:00.0 Mary Laphen Pope: And then we also did an Instagram mini grant challenge, we put a call out to community colleges to share with us, what's excellent about them. And I have to say, this was probably one of my favorite bodies of work, I probably shouldn't have favorites. But the reason I say that is because this was a chance for community colleges to publicly show off what makes them great. We hear about what makes them practical all the time, which is important. But in this challenge, community colleges could really brag on themselves and rightfully so. So the winners from that challenge, they're currently working on enhancing their digital outreach and their marketing efforts. And then there's just one more that I want to bring up. And this last, body of work may seem a little bit out of left field, for this conversation, but I think it's important to connect.
0:11:50.2 Mary Laphen Pope: And that's why partnered with several state systems on their strategic enrollment management work, specifically with community colleges and specifically with a focus on adult learner enrollment. The reason I bring up this work is that I've been learning from this work was that community colleges have been serving adult learners for many years, serving them well, in many cases. But they, actually reaching out to them in their community and finding them and bringing them actively in is a new muscle for many community colleges to flex, and that was a big learning through this work. So, it's a direct tie into why we do marketing and brand identity work, is that community colleges have these great programs and they're ready to serve adult learners and students at large, but we have to think about how they are actively bringing them in and support them in that work. So yeah, those are just a couple things.
0:12:40.0 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, just a couple things, she says. It's a lot, it's a lot, you're doing an awful lot. And I think one of the things I enjoyed when I was a strategy officer with Lumina and working across multiple initiatives and working with all these different institutions and communities, is that you really do get a good bird's eye view of some things and there are so many places to learn from. And I guess, what have you been learning? I mean, you've already described these three distinct initiatives, lots of colleges engaged, lots of folks engaged, what are some of the key things that you've been learning and extracting, across all these bodies of work?
0:13:19.3 Mary Laphen Pope: Yeah, I mean, how much time do we have? We've learned so much. I think if I want to kind of narrow it down to three things that we've learned, the first thing I would say is that small changes make huge impact. Like I said, we've had several different types of investments in this work, and we've seen great impact in each type, the digital space in particular. And I think sometimes when we think about, I am not a creative marketing person, naturally that is not my natural habitat to think in this space. So, to me, it can feel a little overwhelming of like, where to start, and it feels like this huge project. But colleges can make really small kind of tweaks at their institutions that really can create big impact and big difference.
0:14:05.9 Mary Laphen Pope: So it's just some things that we don't have to do a complete brand transformation to see a really, just a greatly improved or new experience for your institutions, or excuse me for your students. Something else I would say and I think that we all know this, but it bears repeating and reminding ourselves, is that it starts with listening. I think many colleges, they're eager to tell their story and rightfully so, but we've really seen exponential impact when folks just take a breath, take a step back and listen. And that can just look like informal state, or excuse me, informal focus groups with students, with community members, with employers, just to hear about how they perceive the college, what is their experience. And for many of our partners, we've learned, that either some things that are folks are loving about their institution that they just didn't quite realize were like such a big deal in some spaces.
0:15:16.6 Mary Laphen Pope: But something else is that some things, there's a misperception or there is something that we may want to shift around, and all of that comes from just taking a beat and listening. And then the third thing I'll say and this is something that we repeat again and again, but I think is so important, is just that identity is important. Community colleges like I said, they're often thought as the utility player, but they're also all things to all people. And they do provide this open access mission and a variety of programs. But it's the specific features, it's the specific programs at colleges that make them special. Like I said, I've had the opportunity to visit so many colleges, and at every single one, there's something there that really makes that college special and really makes them stand out, and that's why people engage, and that's why students get excited to enroll, and that's what ultimately brings them in the door.
0:16:15.9 Mary Laphen Pope: So just finding that piece of identity, you're going to hear from Great Falls who I don't want to spoiler alert, but the work that, Great Falls College in Montana has done in particular really to have this sense of identity and a sense of place in their institution, it's so important, and it's so impactful. And I'm thrilled that you guys are going to be speaking with Dr. Erdmann today to hear more about what she's done with her team, to hear about kind of what it means to be a River Otter, and you'll understand more about what a River Otter means, when you speak with her, but that's just a great example of why identity is so important.
0:16:58.3 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, now you have me really interested it's like we're talking about mobile optimization and branding, and now we're talking about River Otter, so I can't wait to get to that conversation. I think, it's interesting to hear you kind of capture those three lessons as well. I completely agree that the kind of identity is certain a key component and of course small changes do add up quite a bit. But it's interesting to hear you kind of focus on the listening portion as well. I guess as a foundation, who's interested in doing this kind of work, I think there's a lot of directions that you could have chose to go in. For example, there's a lot of foundations and philanthropic initiatives and associations that would just say, ‘Hey, we're going to pick 10 colleges and we're going to hire this consultant team, and they're going to come in and tell you what to do, and here's how you change all your things’, but it's interesting to hear you reemphasize, the need to really listen. Is that something that you've noticed doesn't happen a lot in community colleges? Are there a lot of folks just out there, just trying to charge in ahead in isolation? Or I guess what kind of made you land on that one as a key piece of information that you're learning?
0:18:17.9 Mary Laphen Pope: Yeah, that's a good point. I don't know if I would say that it's not happening because folks are just kind of charging on, I would say sometimes community colleges in particular have very limited capacity, so there just always isn't time, and there just always isn't the resources in whatever that looks like, financial or otherwise, to really kind of take a step back. They want to get from point A to point B, right now enrollment is top of mind for many of us in higher ed. So, it's just like, how do we think about the tactic that's going to get students in the door next week. I think with this work and something that philanthropy can provide is a little bit extra space, and that space coming from thinking about dollars, but also just any technical assistance that we can provide to take a step back to listen. Like I said, I don't think it's not happening because folks don't want to, it's just there's a million things going on. So, if they can provide a little bit.
0:19:22.6 Dakota Pawlicki: Takes a little bit longer to do some listening, to be methodical.
0:19:25.9 Mary Laphen Pope: It does, it does. And it's not something that, when you're thinking about how are we going to get students in the door this semester, it doesn't always feel like first priority. But for the colleges who have done it, we've seen that, you know, it works in that semester, but then three semesters going forward. And also, then kind of sets the tone for like, this is how we do our work now, and it doesn't feel like such a big lift to send out a survey or to have a focus group or something like that, it looks a little bit different everywhere. But it's really just doing it the first time. I think in many cases that, kind of sets the tone for this is how we think about this work.
0:20:05.4 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, as someone who does like, local and regional work, I so appreciate, that's why I latch onto that point. I think it's so important to involve the stakeholders that want to make this ecosystem work really well. And, especially now when all of us are looking at headlines and information about the national perception of higher education, the national perception of whether or not college is worth it or as a value, I think it's easy for us to adopt the national narrative as truth when an actuality the local narrative might be completely different when it's rooted in place. So, there's a lot of like detail work obviously that you get into around building reputation and brand identity. But also, when we start thinking about some of the other things you've mentioned so far like mobile optimization, you're right, people are in the pickup line or on their lunch break or at home scrolling one night passively watching a Super Bowl, and they're on their phone, but that's a lot of technical work as well. I guess I'm curious as you've dove into the world of marketing, mobile optimization SEO, search engine optimization, all these kinds of things, have you found any unique bright spots or hidden pain points that folks who are interested in doing some of this work might want to be aware of?
0:21:28.2 Mary Laphen Pope: Yeah, I guess to start with a negative, and then we'll go to the positive is that, I think the pain point we've already talked about it, but it's just always going to be capacity. Like you said, a lot of this work is technical, so it's one having just like the technical stills to be able to do it, the financial capacity and also the time to do it. Just time is limited for all of us, but especially on a community college campus with folks doing so many things. But, like I said earlier, like small changes make such a big impact, so we don't have to start from scratch. And I think especially in the digital space, there's all sorts of kind of levels of work that you can take on.
0:22:11.2 Mary Laphen Pope: So, if you want to be the really technical person to completely redesign your website from the back end, great. But if that's not like the wheelhouse that you're in yet, start with social media, start with something that is a little bit more like user friendly, something that we did at Lumina also was that we created the social... We didn't create it, we partnered excuse me, with TrendyMinds to do the Social Media Institute. So, the Social Media Institute is a free resource on our website that provides several webinars for folks to work through, how they can boost their social media presence in support of enrollment. So that's something that we try to provide resources as well because we realize that capacity is limited.
0:23:00.7 Mary Laphen Pope: So, how can we put some resources out into the field to help folks really get started where they are. And something else I would say is that, when we started with this work several years ago, we saw colleges that were doing, really kind of great pieces, but in this isolation the folks who are doing this work aren't always the folks who get to go to national conferences and share what's going on, so sometimes it can feel a little isolating. So, something else that we've really tried to be intentional about as we did this work is raising up and sharing all these great examples.
0:23:37.5 Mary Laphen Pope: So, I guess just one more shameless plug for our website but we really have been intentional about providing examples so that folks have a place to start. Like I said, I am not a marketing person by trade, and this is not like, I wouldn't call myself a creative person, I love an example and I understand that other folks love an example. So, we've tried to provide places for people to start. And so like, oh, this is what this college has done, this is similar to me, maybe I can replicate it, or I can do something similar. Or here's their contact information, reach out and see how they did it and folks are more than happy to share in this space particularly.
0:24:18.2 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, that's one... And I have followed you obviously on social media and Lumina, and I've seen you do some of that really excellent work around elevating some of these places. I remember there's, I can't remember which college you were at, but like, you and one of your colleagues, I think Shauna who was probably with you and you're like walking through these great places and really showcasing. I do think that's so critical and will certainly link to the social media Institute as well into our show notes, and we do have a chance to talk to TrendyMinds later on the show as well, so hopefully they can talk a little bit about that. I have to admit though, if I listen to a skeptical voice inside of myself, and certainly as I was thinking about our interview Mary I went back to the days when I was at Lumina and you have an idea and you do a lot of work into developing this idea, this concept, and then you bring it to the executive team.
0:25:07.0 Dakota Pawlicki: And while the executive team is supportive and gracious, they also are there to ask hard questions, that's part of their duty to make sure it's aligned to strategy that's good use of philanthropic resources. And so, as I was thinking about this and putting on my pretend ET pants and thinking about my most skeptical voice, I wondered to myself does this really make sense? Like an outside observer? If Lumina is serious, which I know Lumina is about increasing participation in higher education, like why focus on marketing? We have issues around the cost of college, around affordability, the need to align, learning along pathways, and create new pathways in and out, to make higher ed more relevant, to people's lives in the workforce. And I think there's also the skeptical that would say, well listen isn't marketing the function of any business, shouldn't it just be their responsibility? And it's kind of a capitalistic market of live or let live kind of a thing. What do you say to the skeptic? What do you say to someone who says, is this really the best use of philanthropic resources?
0:26:20.9 Mary Laphen Pope: Yeah, I will say we've been lucky to have a very supportive team here at Lumina. But your point is well taken and in some ways you're right, there's a lot of areas to tackle in higher ed. But at the end of the day, when we think about community colleges and who they're enrolling, they're not competing with each other, they're not competing with the four-year institution down the road, they're competing with no college. So this work is making the case for college enrollment, to your point of our perception, and it's bringing students through the door who otherwise would not be coming. And we can say that in some ways it's the college's responsibility.
0:27:09.2 Mary Laphen Pope: But we can also say a lot of this work is higher ed's responsibility. I think that when we think about also philanthropy, what our responsibility and really what our opportunity is, is that we get to see the innovation, and we get to support leaders who can create movements, and that's really how I see this work. I see these colleges and the folks on the ground who are doing this work, they're those leaders who are creating this movement, who are creating these opportunities to better connect with their communities. And I feel lucky that Lumina has internally, but also externally supported this work and that through Lumina's resources, we're able to support colleges across the country in connecting with their communities and bringing those students through the door who, for one reason or another just didn't think college was for them or that college was for them, that's what this work is and it's that connection, yeah.
0:28:17.9 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, yeah. And also, just listening to our conversation it strikes me that, sometimes what a resourced constrained organization might need is a little bit of extension of their capacity.
0:28:31.3 Mary Laphen Pope: Yes.
0:28:32.8 Dakota Pawlicki: We talk about capacity building all the time, and that's an important part, but sometimes you meet a place that has a great vision, they have a good team, they have a good plan, and what they lack is just a little bit of extra resource, it could be money in this case or technical resource or people, or whatever it might be, they just need a little bit of extra help to help make that vision a reality. And it strikes me that we do that in so many ways, other than just philanthropic resource. Look what half of what the federal government is for, is to also invest public dollars in public resources like land and others into this kind of, same kind of capacity extension for other industries. And I think your point about community colleges not competing with each other and they're the only one around in their locality to provide the kind of services that they uniquely provide, I think is a really compelling one.
0:29:27.5 Mary Laphen Pope: Yeah. And I think to your point about philanthropy can provide a little bit extra capacity. Something that has been really striking to me in this work is that I would say almost every partner that we have worked with and when we're having kind of the introductory conversations and getting to know each other, getting to know their goals, they share that they wanted to do this work anyways. They had a plan, they had a vision to your point, but there aren't always the flexible funds, especially when we think about public funding, every dollar is very well accounted for, so we don't always have the flexible funds for innovation or to try something new. So within philanthropy, it's really an honor to be able to support colleges and trying out or really making their vision a reality. Several folks have shared with us that we were going to do this anyways, it may have taken us 10 or 15 years, now we can do it in two. And how wonderful is that to be able to ride those results to students in two years, not 10 or 15 years?
0:30:36.1 Dakota Pawlicki: Well, you have written a bunch about this, there's so much great material, I know there's like a, one of the blog posts you wrote that was like, steal these five strategies, that was a really fun read. Obviously, we have the Social Media Institute and lots of things out there. So I know you've been quite busy Mary and I know, you're going to be quite busy in the future as well. But I just want to say thanks for spending a little bit of your time today chatting with us and also connecting us to the future guests. Again, after we talk with you, we're going to go visit Great Falls and learn more about this River Otter which is going to be kind of a fun conversation around how brand identity can really be developed through the mechanism of developing a mascot, and of course going to Iowa and talking with TrendyMinds as well. But, we'll leave it here for now, thank you so much for joining me and giving us kind of a bird's eye view and sharing your work a little bit more with us.
0:31:31.5 Mary Laphen Pope: Well, thank you for having me, it was great to chat, thank you.
0:31:34.3 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, of course.
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0:32:43.1 Dakota Pawlicki: Hey, everyone welcome back. I'm really excited now to bring in Dr. Stephanie Erdmann the CEO of Great Falls College up in Great Falls, Montana. Great Falls, applied to be part of Lumina's Million Dollar Community College Challenge and was awarded a finalist, and I've invited, Dr. Erdmann here today to talk to us a little bit about that process. Dr. Erdmann, thanks so much for joining me today.
0:33:05.4 Stephanie Erdmann: Well, thank you for the invitation to join you today, I'm looking forward to our conversation.
0:33:09.9 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, absolutely. We are just hearing from Mary about all the great work that, she's been trying to do, around improving, the conditions and improving, marketing for community colleges. I know there's a lot of colleges that ended up applying for the Million Dollar Community College Challenge. Bring us back in time a little bit, why did Great Falls throw their hat in the ring on this one?
0:33:32.8 Stephanie Erdmann: Great Falls College threw our hat in the ring on this several years ago, and kind of the launch for the application is I was new to the campus, I'd been here three or four months, new to Great Falls area. And what I had realized in my very short time here is the community didn't know the name of our campus.
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0:33:58.6 Dakota Pawlicki: That's a big thing.
0:34:01.3 Stephanie Erdmann: It's a big thing. And the name had changed after I did a little research three times in about 12 or 13 years. It becoming the College of Technology and then moving toward Montana State University, Great Falls College, and then Great Falls College, Montana State University. And the college across the street from us had gone through numerous name changes as well. So that institution had three name changes in two decades, that one of those iterations was College of Great Falls, and then it was University of Great Falls, now it's University of Providence. So, the community was confused, and that was very apparent in the beginning, and we needed to figure out how we were going to basically have a brand, we needed a brand that people knew and that they could relate to. So we threw our hat in for the Million Dollar Community College Challenge, and were very blunt that we would go out to these big presentations and people who had lived here a long, long time would call us a different name, and people who had just moved in would get the name correct. So we needed to have a community change.
0:35:21.4 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, that's a tough challenge. I'm curious, when you're looking back into it, do you know why they changed the name? I mean, three name changes in 12 years for a college is quite a quite a thing. You're not a tech startup, so I'm just curious like, how did that happen?
0:35:39.9 Stephanie Erdmann: I'm not sure of exactly how it happened, but I do know that in 1994 the two-year institutions as part of the Montana University system joined the Montana University system, they were separate vo-techs and at that time then they were attached to one of the flagship institutions. So, Montana State University is a flagship, and University of Montana is a flagship. As part of that, the flagship name became a part of the affiliated campus.
0:36:15.8 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, yeah. So is it... Obviously around the United States there's a lot of those kinds of situations where there's a flagship campus and then either satellite campuses or the community college system or technical college system kind of becomes part of it. Is that a matter of internal decision making? Is it like this college kind of marketing and brand identity becomes the responsibility of the flagship, and then it's the decision being made at the flagship level pushed down? Is that kind of what you see happening in some places?
0:36:47.6 Stephanie Erdmann: I think it's sharing of resources more than anything else, so we are still a public two-year standalone institution with our own accrediting body, but we share resources with our flagship and our affiliated campuses such as legal compliance, HR, those types of things.
0:37:12.1 Dakota Pawlicki: So, you don't necessarily share like a marketing communications department with your flagship then?
0:37:16.0 Stephanie Erdmann: No.
0:37:16.1 Dakota Pawlicki: Okay, yeah. Well, that's great. Well then you obviously had a lot of work to do and I appreciate it. Sometimes it's that newcomer coming in and saying, wait a minute I'm hearing our college referred to by so many different names. It makes sense why you wanted to go after a little bit of brand identity work. As you started digging into it, I have to imagine you also did a little bit of learning about what the perceptions of Great Falls College, is like before the work. What was it like and what did you want to move towards?
0:37:50.9 Stephanie Erdmann: The perception of Great Falls College throughout the community really was that we were still a vo-tech attached to the high school, and we really wanted to embrace the fact that we were a two-year community college providing opportunities for students to start here go somewhere else, to start a program and launch into a career to apprentice with us, to do some short-term training and really get the concept of embracing who we are. And we are an awesome two-year community college in Great Falls, Montana, that's really what we were trying to do.
0:38:37.4 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah. So, how do you think it was impacting the college by having such a strong connection just as a vo-tech connected to a high school?
0:38:47.8 Stephanie Erdmann: Those individuals who had been here for a long time I think embrace the fact that the vo-tech training is an opportunity for individuals. We wanted to make sure though that vo-tech wasn't considered a less than option, that a vo-tech degree is an opportunity to provide economic vitality for your family, and then you can be a lifelong learner, you can go back to school, you can upskill, you can retool, you can retrain, it provides a start and an opportunity, and it is not a less than degree option.
0:39:25.5 Dakota Pawlicki: So how does a college like yours begin to shift its brand identity? I mean, is this a matter of just saying, ‘Hey, everybody our name is actually this.’ I can't believe it would be just that simple. What were some of the steps you had to take?
0:39:36.6 Stephanie Erdmann: It definitely wasn't that simple. After we found out that we were a finalist in the million Dollar Community College Challenge, we started really thinking about what is going to differentiate us from the college across the street, and how are we going to solidify what the name of our college is? We began putting together the concept of a mascot, so having a mascot that would solidify what our brand is. It was an awesome project to put together. We worked with students and the community and we launched the kickoff to identify what is our mascot going to be. And we solicited ideas, it was open for about two weeks, we had about 450 responses, 450 different ideas for a mascot. And we compared those ideas to a set of criteria that was created from a steering committee. We got that down to about 225. From that 225, the steering committee which was made up of community members, employees of the college and students, about 22 people winnowed that down to around 30 or 35. Then we went into another voting session, and in that voting session, anybody out in the community could vote, but you could only vote once from your own computer, 'cause we tracked the IP address, and we got it down to the top 10.
0:41:24.7 Stephanie Erdmann: And then from that top 10, we had another vote to get to the top three finalists. And the top three finalists were a River Otter, an electric Elk, and a Wolverine. And then to make it fair, we worked with a marketing firm to create what an example mascot would look like. So the steering committee worked with that marketing firm and they created images of those three different mascots. And from those, we did a community vote again, over 2000 people participated. And we ended up being Great Falls College Home of the River Otter.
0:42:13.4 Dakota Pawlicki: Congratulations, that's a long process to get to a River Otter, that's awesome.
0:42:16.8 Stephanie Erdmann: And it was awesome because the Missouri River runs right through Great Falls, and it's a huge part of this area, and there are river otters everywhere. It also helped with the kind of campus that we are, we are a warm and friendly campus, which I think people equate river otters to being more of a friendly mascot rather than a fierce mascot. And it really showcases the feeling that we wanted on our campus which is fun, yet we can get serious at the same time.
0:42:55.2 Dakota Pawlicki: Wow, that's a really interesting approach. Do you remember what some of the initial criteria was? You said, you solicited initial kind of brainstormed ideas, you got 450 different unique ideas, and they kind of got pushed up against a set of criteria or standards that your committed had determined. Do you remember what some of those standards might have been?
0:43:18.4 Stephanie Erdmann: Yeah, I can remember a couple of them. One in particular is, was we wanted to be future forward, which meant eliminating lots of things like dinosaurs or pioneers or the buccaneers or those kinds of mascots. We wanted it to reflect our area, the area of the state to be Montana centric. I think those are the ones that I can remember off the top of my head. We did want to be able to not really have a male or a female that it would be more of a, who knows what, and the river otter fit all of those. The electric Elk could have been interesting as well, we weren't sure what that was going to be, but Great Falls is known, its nickname is the Electric City because there are five dams on the Missouri River, so it fit all of the criteria as well. So that was kind of fun to see what an electric Elk might turn out to be. And then the Wolverine actually ended up, it was pretty far in the third spot, pretty far down in the third spot, so it really was going to be river out or electric Elk.
0:44:36.3 Dakota Pawlicki: There you go, there you go. X-men kind of took the Wolverine stuff, we're all tired of Wolverines at this point. Yeah, that's a fascinating process. Were there any... So, I guess I'm thinking like how you build a brand identity, and of course, like there's a quick easy, like oh, yeah, we just need a mascot. And I think it would be easy to be dismissive of that kind of approach sometimes, but I'm also envisioning the kind of conversations that have to come up about a college and what the college wants to be, and how the college wants to function through the process of creating a mascot, it works as a good proxy into the conversation. Were there conversations along the journey of developing a mascot that you might have had internally or with external community members, where you also learned a little bit more about your college and how it's being perceived and what you might want to grow towards in the future?
0:45:38.1 Stephanie Erdmann: Yeah, there were some awesome conversations that were had. Some people were thinking, well, why would you want a mascot and you don't have sports teams? That was really the question that we fielded the most often. And then our response to that was well, why can GEICO have a gecko. And everybody was like, huh, that makes sense, so our mascot could also be our spokesperson. So that worked out really well, that was a good conversation. Another one was trying to create a sense of pride in choosing Great Falls College. Again, as a first choice, not as a, oh, I just am going to figure out what I want to be, it's more of a, like, yeah, I'm at Great Falls College, I love it here, and I'm happy to be a River Otter. But that's sort of what happened with the conversations that we had about developing a mascot sense of pride, and an understanding of why would you want a mascot. There were folks on campus here who worked here that were thinking why are we doing this? And then once the brand, once the mascot was identified and there was merchandise out there, all of a sudden folks were, we had to really work hard on honing in owning the brand and owning the river otter and trademarking it, because folks were out there making their own t-shirts and getting their own designs done, we had to get a handle on that, that's how excited we were.
0:47:18.6 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, that's, the legal team comes in and figures out some trademarking issues.
0:47:22.7 Stephanie Erdmann: Yeah, exactly.
0:47:23.3 Dakota Pawlicki: And like, as the CEO though, it is part of your role to guide an organization through change management and I hear what you're saying, there's probably staff and faculty being like, what are we doing this for? How did you help your colleagues see the potential, see the vision that you are trying to achieve here?
0:47:47.4 Stephanie Erdmann: Well, GEICO with a gecko really helped, people were like, oh, that makes sense. And then having the marketing team that we hired create what the mascot would look like, also help people with a vision and just setting what this could be, really help folks get on board. And then once there was merchandise out there, then all of a sudden people understood the reasoning. So, we were able to take that River Otter logo, and we did things with it. So, what we did is we sponsored a race car at the racetrack with a giant River Otter on the front. We branded our vehicles and our CDL truck and wrapped it with the River Otter. We started using the River Otter in our social media, we started calling ourselves Great Falls College, Home of the River Otter. We hired celebrities, well, Montana local celebrities.
0:48:57.1 Dakota Pawlicki: Sure.
0:48:58.2 Stephanie Erdmann: To do videos about our name and that, it's Great Falls College Home of the River Otters. We really tried to hone it in.
0:49:09.1 Dakota Pawlicki: I really appreciate that, and I also think it's important that you took a very participatory process, you used the participatory process to get there. I think there's a lot of other places that would Hey, we want to improve brand identity, you hire a firm and say, here are the five actions you should take, one of them is get a mascot, and then you shop it out to a firm and voila, here we have the Wolverines or something. But instead, you took a very... I think as I hear you talk about the process that you've used and of course the end product all along the way, there's been multiple avenues for anyone to really get engaged, I think that matters a whole lot.
0:49:54.2 Stephanie Erdmann: Yeah, it's been fun to hear from the community members who would say, I sat down with my daughter, she's 10 years old, and we voted together, that's pretty neat. So now we have a 10-year-old who's now 13, who might be thinking about college and might be thinking about Great Falls College, and how fun it was to vote for the River Otter, so we're playing the long game here.
0:50:18.3 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah. I like that, I like that. Speaking of... I know that your work with the one million Dollar Challenge part of it was of course, this brand identity work which took the form of the River Otter which is awesome. But there was also another important component around connecting with the community. And obviously you're connecting with the community through the process of the mascot creation and ideation. What else did you do a around connecting with the community? What does that look like?
0:50:51.1 Stephanie Erdmann: We've done quite a few things in connecting with the community through the River Otter. A year later, we're like what's the name of our River Otter? And some people were calling it Ollie, others were calling it Harry Potter, which I was pretty sure we were going to get in trouble for.
[laughter]
0:51:12.4 Stephanie Erdmann: And some were calling it Mo, some were calling it The Otter, we realized that we needed to name our River Otter. So we went through a very similar process, probably not quite as intense as the first process. And we let our student government then handle the naming of the River Otter. Very similar process was used, again the community got involved, lots and lots of names were thrown in there. We got to a top 10, and then we voted on the top 10, and then we did a big reveal of what the name of the River Otter is, and the River Otter ended up being Mo.
0:51:54.9 Dakota Pawlicki: Oh, right.
0:51:56.7 Stephanie Erdmann: And the Missouri River's nickname is the Mighty Mo, so it all ended up just working out so well. Then taking it even a step further with having the River Otter as our mascot, and we have a name for it. We have one really large building that has been added on four or five times here. We don't have separate buildings, so we don't have such and such hall or such and such building, or go to the student union. So, taking this whole concept around being Great Falls College, Home of the River Otter, we solidified our building to have wings, each of these wings is named after a river in this area. So, when you walk in to our front entrance, you're in the Missouri River Wing. And then we have the Sun River, the Teton, the Marias, and the Roe River. And we've been putting in our facilities, redesigning the space with signage. So new signage that reflects the concept of the rivers and the River Otter for directional signage, as well as great big maps at the front of the building, at the different entrances so that you can get in. And it's all branded with the River Otter and our new brand identity as well.
0:53:32.0 Dakota Pawlicki: So, you've got Mo you've got this wonderful asset in the community of the building that's obviously way more local. Has this equipped you to go out into the community a bit more and appear a bit different? Again, going back before this your college had changed the name three times in 12 years or something like that, and now you have a stronger brand identity, you have assets in a lot of different ways, including Mo the Otter. Did that change how it worked when you're out in the community with other folks?
0:54:12.8 Stephanie Erdmann: It does a little bit. And part of that is about three years ago, I presented at a big business function, probably 250 people in attendance. And what I'd been doing is giving little fun facts at the end of a presentation about, what do you call a group of river otters on the land? Do you know the answer?
0:54:37.3 Dakota Pawlicki: I don't know the answer.
0:54:39.7 Stephanie Erdmann: If river otters are in a group on land, they're called a romp.
0:54:42.6 Dakota Pawlicki: That's a good name.
0:54:44.7 Stephanie Erdmann: It is, and if they're in the water together, so it's a different name, if they're a group in the water and they're called a raft.
0:54:52.6 Dakota Pawlicki: A raft, that makes lot sense, that makes a lot of sense.
0:54:54.4 Stephanie Erdmann: It does, isn't it? A raft and a romp. So, what I'd been doing is having these little quizzes at the end of a presentation, and then I had these special River Otter socks that were designed, and I would give people these socks if they won or they participated in these quizzes. Now, these socks have become quite the coveted piece of merchandise, you can only get them from Dr. Erdmann when I'm giving a presentation. And it's super fun because I had somebody from the commissioner's office, so the Office of Higher Ed in the state of Montana, she was, is and still is dating a guy here in Great Falls. And when they were dating, he mentioned that, or somehow, you know how you're creating common ground, somehow it came up that he got a pair of these River Otter socks from Dr. Erdmann at Great Falls College. So, I cannot wait if they ever get married, because I can see Mo officiating that or announcing that engagement.
[laughter]
0:56:02.6 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, yeah. Mo is going to have to get ordained one way or another, it looks like.
0:56:06.8 Stephanie Erdmann: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, it has been fun to get out in the community in that way. We have other ideas as well. We have marketed on the sides of buses, we have marketed on the city benches, we have some billboards up, and people have been asking, that's the nice thing. We've been out in front of the community and the audience, and they've been asking about Mo, the River Otters, our campus, how things are going, what new programs we have, how we're involved in the community, so it really has created a little bit of commotion, which is awesome.
0:56:48.0 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, yeah. I'm hoping you'll take a leap with me a little bit here, because we're at a time right now where there's a lot of conversation around the perceptions of higher education, around the value of it. A lot of folks are wondering whether or not it has a purpose in their life as an individual or rather we value it as a society more broadly. And here you are, you're doing intentional work in your community to say, ‘Hey, we're here, and we have a lot of great programs and can be a connector to opportunity for you if want to come and join us.’ How do you think this kind of work, I mean this is the leap. How do you think Mo the River Otter contributes to improving the perceptions that Americans, or at least in your community folks from Great Falls, have around the concerns over the value of higher education?
0:57:55.3 Stephanie Erdmann: Well, improved marketing and brand development can have a significant impact on addressing Americans concerns about the value and purpose of higher ed. It's unlikely to resolve any deeper, more complex issues that are at play. But people, question really the return on investment of a college degree, and they're looking at the rising cost of tuition and the burden of student debt. We at Great Falls College, a community college, our tuition very affordable, our programs get people jobs, our ability to transfer somewhere else is seamless, essentially. So how we've been talking about this is we highlight our outcomes and our career success, we create success stories around our students, around our alumni, around our faculty, around our employees. We do promote that we're affordable, but we're not cheap. We promote the affordability of getting a degree, not that this is the cheaper place to go.
0:59:06.7 Stephanie Erdmann: And we emphasize that we're flexible with a lot of flexible learning options, and then we showcase the broader value of education, that it's more than just degree here, that you have a community, that you have personal growth, that you have people who are going to support you for the rest of your life if you choose to stay here and stay involved with Great Falls College. And then for our non-traditionals, we do a lot with adult learners, and this is an option, if you can't go somewhere else, you are solidified here in the community, whether we have a military base on site, so perfect opportunity to go to school while your spouse is in the military. Perfect opportunity if you're here with a family and you don't plan to go anywhere else, because we have awesome partnerships with our industry. And essentially if that's what you choose, you can stay here and earn a good living and get a job.
1:00:14.3 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah. I kind of hear what you're saying, that there's a lot that can be done at a very local level. Sometimes I wonder that, you read the headlines from national newspapers and from industry publications about, we read the Gallup polling, about, Americans at large perceptions, and I've always been curious. I know I do a lot of local work around the country and it seems I keep bumping into people saying well, I don't know if college is right for my kid, but I really like Great Falls College except for them, they do great work. And I guess I'm curious, have you seen that come up? Like, everyone else is terrible and not worth it? Well, except for this place right here at home?
1:00:56.9 Stephanie Erdmann: I'm not sure if I can answer that honestly. I have been working with two-years, in community colleges my entire higher education career, and I started at a community college myself. I did transfer obviously to baccalaureate, a master's, and a PhD. But the opportunities that community colleges provide are worth it, and they have been for decades, for decades. So, I can only control what's in my bubble, that's what I'm going to say. That I am a strong advocate for the opportunity, for individuals to have access to higher education, and two-year institutions provide that for everyone.
1:01:47.8 Dakota Pawlicki: And the help of River Otter gives you a chance to say that a little bit more loudly, it seems.
[laughter]
1:01:54.2 Stephanie Erdmann: Well, as loud as I want to, I guess.
1:01:55.5 Dakota Pawlicki: That's right, that's right. [laughter] Hey, before I let you go, I have to ask so you had five, excuse me 450 unique names or ideas for Mascot rather. Were there any that like, are memorable for other reasons? I mean every time anyone opens up something to the public to like, name something or, there's always a wide range of responses, I guess we can say in polite company. I'm curious if there's any that also caught your eye or your mind.
1:02:28.6 Stephanie Erdmann: No, nothing that was too crazy. I know there are other campuses that have like the Banana Slugs.
[laughter]
1:02:38.5 Dakota Pawlicki: Sure.
1:02:40.2 Stephanie Erdmann: And I was really hoping that we wouldn't get something like that ending up in the top 10, although they've embraced it and done such a great job with that Mascot. I think somebody mentioned the Starfish. Well, that doesn't quite fit in too well either. But mostly I wanted something future forward, and that's the ones that weren't got eliminated on the first cut.
1:03:02.3 Dakota Pawlicki: Nice, so it's not like the one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater, or…
[laughter]
1:03:05.0 Stephanie Erdmann: No, not that I can remember.
[laughter]
1:03:09.2 Dakota Pawlicki: Okay. Well, that's good, what a great process. It sounds like Great Falls is a lovely community, you see some other things around there, so that's great. Well, Dr. Erdmann thank you so much for joining me today. Congratulations on all the wonderful progress. I was sharing with you before we started recording that I'm heading myself up to Montana here pretty soon. Maybe I can swing by Great Falls and check out Mo the River Otter that sounds like a great time.
1:03:33.8 Stephanie Erdmann: I would love that and if you're here, I will definitely get you a pair of River Otter socks.
1:03:37.7 Dakota Pawlicki: See, now I have to come, now I have to come that is awesome.
[laughter.
1:03:41.1 Stephanie Erdmann: You do, the coveted River Otter socks.
1:03:43.8 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah. Well, thank you so much again for joining us and sharing a little bit more about what you did, I think there's a lot of folks listening that might want to get embarking on figuring out their brand identity through potentially a new mascot, I think that sounds like a great idea.
1:04:01.0 Stephanie Erdmann: I appreciate your time this morning, it was very nice to visit with you and nice to meet you as well.
1:04:06.0 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, likewise, thanks so much.
[pause]
[music]
1:05:38.9 Dakota Pawlicki: Hey everyone, welcome back. I'm really excited to bring this next part of our conversation together. With me now is Beth Elman, the Executive Director of marketing for Iowa Lakes Community College, and Emily Cornforth, the marketing director for non-for-profit and Education Industries with TrendyMinds, I'm really excited to have them both here. And Beth, I kind of want to start with you. I know that you've been working with Lumina, you've worked with TrendyMinds a bit to improve some of the ways that, you and your colleagues at Iowa Lakes Community College are trying to outreach to students. There's a lot of ways, I know for me, I keep learning about marketing and marketing is a very, very big bucket within that, is mobile optimization. Can you talk to me a little bit about why you all decide to focus some of your efforts in places like mobile optimization?
1:06:30.4 Beth Elman: Mobile optimization has been a really important aspect of what we're doing on the marketing side here at Iowa Lakes, because we are so rural and we know that there's limited access to broadband. One thing we know about our students is that 94% of them do have a mobile device, so we know that they're able to connect with us using their devices and making sure that we have the right systems in place to provide that connectivity to all of the resources that we have here at Iowa Lakes to help them decide how they're going to move forward and just to really guide them through their journey to enrollment.
1:07:04.5 Dakota Pawlicki: I'm kind of curious as you started thinking about this and looking at all of your responsibilities across the college, how did you figure out that you need to optimize for mobile? Were you hearing from students? I know as a consumer of things, I like popping my phone and there's Google and it works. So, I guess I'm just curious what kind signals you were getting, to know that mobile optimization would be a good use of your time and resources?
1:07:31.3 Beth Elman: Well, one area that I know that we focus on and a lot of the students who do enroll especially at community colleges, are your adult learners, your first-generation students, those underserved populations, and they often have their responsibility of juggling work, family, other components of life that they need to balance with that. And knowing that they needed to have that seamless, mobile friendly way to connect where we can basically be in their back pocket when it's convenient for them, was really something that we thought about in the user experience. And so that's kind of how we focus our efforts on the mobile side and knowing how can we connect with them when they need us to be there.
1:08:11.2 Dakota Pawlicki: I mean, I don't know much about marketing. I'm an old tuba player, and I'm an old music teacher by training. So, I always love talking to folks that are working in places that I know nothing about. And I really, I've built a couple websites in my time, not really like programmy programmy wilting, but using like WordPress and all that kind of stuff. But I don't have a single idea about what it really means to have to optimize something for mobile. What is some of like the intricacies or complications that come up in that work, kind of presumes like you why can't everyone just do this easily? Or isn't it just like a click of a button these days like, show mobile? Give me the kind of behind the scenes of what it has to look like.
1:08:52.1 Beth Elman: When you put together a website, traditionally before the mobile generation I guess launched, you would build your website and everything was built to fit the screen of a standard PC or your computer size. But as you look at mobile, the way that you build out your pages, it really changes because where you might have a banner that would look appropriate on a computer screen from your desktop, that may not necessarily be the same way that it focuses when you're on mobile. And so trying to make sure that your website is compatible, based on the different screen sizes and how your information's presented, there's just a lot of work that needs to go into that to make sure that the user experience is what you want it to be, and so that it's easy for people to navigate. Everybody's looking for what they need right now. And I think that's kind of where we've moved to in the society, you're ready to have that information at your fingertips with your mobile device. And when things are complicated, when people are trying to go through that journey and it's not as easy as they need it to be that becomes a barrier and trying to overcome that, making it as simple, 1, 2, 3, connect with them, get them what they need, that's really what's driven that mobile experience, is just making sure that that experience is exactly what they're looking for.
1:10:11.0 Dakota Pawlicki: How much effort did you have to put into, to those navigation kinds of things? I hear you talk about navigation, meaning to make sure that the right information's easily accessible, but I know when I'm on my laptop and I'm looking at a website there's like lots of menu options and I can click all these different things, but when I'm on a mobile website, the menu options, the navigation is different. How did you go about making? I got to assume there's some hard choices that you had to make in terms of navigation and menus on a mobile site versus a non-mobile site. How do you go about making some of those choices?
1:10:44.6 Beth Elman: Sure. Honestly, the way I started was researching. I looked at different institutions across the country looking at private schools, four-year universities, other community colleges, and kind of seeing how that all worked from different sites and taking different pieces. Like how this really functions here, that's a good way to present that information, just kind of looking at how industry is trending was a really, really important aspect. And then taking what we had available through what we chose for building our site and molding it into that. But really the biggest part of deciding how to map out your site or how to make it more user friendly is to think about it as someone who has never had any experience with navigating a website before. So how can you make it as easy as possible? How can you change your language so that it's written in a way that a sixth grader could read and understand? It's just making sure that the information's available in a way that's easy to access, easy to understand, easy to navigate.
1:11:48.2 Dakota Pawlicki: I think its like a worthy way to look at it. How does you know someone who has never have to experience or never had experienced a website before navigate it. But I also, I've worked for a higher institution before and I know sometimes that feathers can get ruffled, why isn't my program on here? Or I can't find this anymore as the internal staff and faculty. Did you have any conversations with, internal colleagues about these site maps? Was that a positive thing? Were there some fights that you had to fight? You don't look bruised at all, so I think you're okay, but just curious.
1:12:27.7 Beth Elman: It's very an interesting environment. But collaboration is always key. I always feel like the more you communicate, the more you collaborate, the more successful you're going to be as you navigate it through a project as big as a website. Higher ed websites have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages and trying to make sure that they're nested properly and so that they're easy to navigate. But, I had a lot of support from our administration. Our president was very supportive of the project and working with the cabinet. I'm lucky enough to be on the cabinet, so being at the table for those conversations is really key to not only have the conversations, but to bring other people in at the ground level. So that there's a full understanding of why maybe a decision's made one way or another, and it just really opens the door for, okay, that makes sense. And people have a better understanding as to, okay, well we may want this site here, but the reason why we need it one way is to think that, our whole point is to reach to students who are looking to enroll and how can we develop our website so that it's maximizing the enrollment experience.
1:13:37.4 Dakota Pawlicki: So, a clear focus, good communication, leadership support, and probably with a little dose of diplomacy probably goes a long way for this kind of change effort?
1:13:47.4 Beth Elman: Absolutely.
1:13:50.6 Dakota Pawlicki: Well, I know you're just talking about support, and Emily Cornforth from TrendyMinds was a part of this and provided you support. Emily, I'd love to hear a little bit from you. What ways did TrendyMinds kind of help Iowa Lakes Community College, make this kind of transformation happen?
1:14:06.3 Emily Cornforth: One, I would just say I agree with what Beth is talking about here. But a couple of ways we really came alongside to support these efforts was really to kind of look at what is mobile optimization and how is it going to really impact Beth and her team, as well as other community colleges that were supporting through Lumina. And when we really started looking into this, we quickly looked at some of the data that was at our fingertips, and we quickly realized as Beth kind of alluded to 30% of rural adult Americans own multiple devices, so think laptop, cell phone, etcetera. But 80% of rural Americans own a smartphone, so like Beth said, they've got that computer in their back pocket. And so, what we really wanted to do was to lean into what should mobile look like, and how do you make that happen?
1:15:02.9 Emily Cornforth: And so, right away we really went into thinking about what is the first impression. So for Iowa Lakes, they've got a great website, it's the front door to their college and their institution, how can we make it better? And so, again, kind of leaning into the data that we were able to find we very quickly understood that when an adult learner is making that decision to continue their higher education path, 95% will tell you that the way the website is designed, the way that they interface with that website impacts their decision on whether or not they should engage and potentially apply to that institution. So we took that into consideration. We also looked at the load times on those sites, so reducing mobile site load time, we really leaned into that.
1:16:03.2 Emily Cornforth: And we know that that can really increase conversion rates, if that load time is a lot shorter. But then really where we really wanted to make this, kind of impact and really make Beth and her team, really understand like all the hard work that they're getting ready to do and undertake in this project, is the fact that Google uses the mobile version of a website as the primary source to index and rank the site, so that's a huge impact. But we also knew that, like I said, the undertaking that Beth and her team were getting ready to do, so we went ahead and a lot of these community college teams are very small teams, they wear many hats, and they do a lot of incredible work. So we felt that we could come alongside and take their existing website, and we would do an SEO audit across their entire site.
1:17:02.5 Emily Cornforth: So, what we did is we went through kind of why mobile first, and it was kind of a four part webinar series. And then we went in and we did a deep dive for Beth and other college partners where we really did an SEO audit across their entire site, we looked at performance as well, and then we came alongside with recommendations and walked each individual team across that work, what those recommendations are, and really how to do them, so that they felt confident moving forward after that to really get that work done. And then we had kind of office hours where we knew the teams, Beth and her team were really leaning into this work and making the change that needed to be made, but we didn't want to leave them high and dry either. So we said, go ahead and do the work, but schedule some time with us.
1:17:51.6 Emily Cornforth: We brought in here at TrendyMinds we have nine studios, one of which is our content studio. We brought in our content and SEO team to support on those calls, to answer those questions and kind of do a deeper dive, or what we like to say a double click into those specific areas. And then once we felt like that was in a really good place, we actually stood up, a dashboard for all of the colleges where they had a live dashboard through Looker Studio that they could then go and use to see how their website was performing and the impact of the change that they were making.
1:18:27.1 Dakota Pawlicki: There's a lot to unpack there, which I appreciate 'cause obviously you're providing a lot of support in a condensed amount of time to achieve something great. You've touched on a couple things, I guess you mentioned load time, and I admit that I kind of broke out into a cold sweat because it reminds me of the last time I designed a website and I was working with someone who has expertise similar to yours, and they talked to me about load time, and they said, Dakota you guys use a lot of natural photography, photography from places and people, but those file sizes get huge. And they were telling me that like, Hey, you really need to compress every single image you have on your website in order to improve load time. And again, I'm an old tuba player, these are things I don't necessarily know. As you were looking at things like load time, obviously images might be one element of it, maybe I'm wrong. What kind of goes into improving or reducing load time for a website?
1:19:25.4 Emily Cornforth: It's a really good question. And I will say, I am not the technical expert, I would bring in our team for that. But what I can say is, you're spot on. You are looking at the size of the images, the size of the video, making sure that they're compressed the right way to better serve your audience. But then the other piece of this beyond load time, and this really gets into rankings as well, is you want to make sure that all of those images and videos have a tag on them so that they are helping your ranking as well. So you want to make sure you have a description, a small text that really supports what that image is and it's purpose of being on your site as well. But you're like I said spot on, you want to make sure that, any of the files that you're hosting on your site, are compressed that is going to help make sure that that load time is a lot smaller, more faster.
1:20:19.4 Dakota Pawlicki: I got to imagine some of those tags and things too are part of metadata information that...
1:20:23.0 Emily Cornforth: Yes.
1:20:24.3 Dakota Pawlicki: Does get scraped by Google to improve search engine optimization like you've been talking about. But I also really appreciate how focused on data you are, it's like, this is a very much data informed conversation. I know there's a lot of times where you think, oh, we got to redesign a website, why I really like this font, here's my color palette, and that's an important part as well. But there is obviously in addition to the design and feel of something, there's also the technical side, but there's also the data side. And you mentioned the dashboard that you stood up. What are some of the metrics that are included on a dashboard like that? What should community colleges be paying attention to?
1:21:02.9 Emily Cornforth: Sure. So oftentimes we're looking at the time that a user is spending on the site. Are they engaging with the content? Are they clicking? Are they looking at multiple pages? So in this case, are they clicking on a degree that they might be interested in? Then ultimately in this particular scenario, we really want them to be clicking on an RFI form. We want them to engage with that site and think of it as what's the next step? They've engaged, they've come through our front door, through our website, now we need them to engage with us and start that conversation to get more information, perhaps enroll. Maybe they're talking with a financial advisor, etcetera, they're really kind of putting together that pathway to attend Iowa Lakes or another community college. So that's really what we're looking at, and we're hoping that everything has the proper tags on it so that we can show ultimately at the end of the day where users are spending time, where are they going to get the information, and then we can look at wins and losses across the site to continue to refine that.
1:22:12.3 Dakota Pawlicki: So, Beth, I'm curious obviously trying to monitor things like time on the site and of course whether or not a person makes it to some kind of request for information form or some kind of a call to action. Have you noticed a change? Were you measuring these things prior to doing some of this work? And if not, that's okay, I'm just curious if you've noticed a change after you've had a chance to do all this great work around mobilization or optimization of mobile?
1:22:42.0 Beth Elman: Absolutely. Well, first I want to say that our work with TrendyMinds was a game changer as far as how we were looking at how our website pages were built and how we were being ranked within search engines. I feel like we were on the right path. But what we found out from our consultation with TrendyMinds and their audit that they did for us really showed us where we had opportunity for growth and how we could be more competitive within our market. And so, taking what we learned from that audit and implementing it into the work that we were doing, boots on the ground, that allowed us to really make effective change. And with our dashboard that Emily had referred to, we have that saved so that we can review and we can look at different points in time comparing it to where we were last year.
1:23:31.3 Beth Elman: And I actually, I just pulled the dashboard up just so that, a snapshot. So since we launched our new site, I'm looking at comparisons and we're seeing green arrows up across the board as far as number of sessions, average session duration, page views, page views per session, total users, we're seeing a really nice trend upward. And so, at the end of the day when we're looking at if the things that we are doing are they making a difference? Yes, they are, and it's a big impact. And, like trying to get students to go to a lead referral, we've changed how our web pages are laid out. So, there's a form fill option at the bottom of every page. So no matter where they're at, we have them calls to action, put throughout the different content that we have in our pages, but the bottom of every page, one they can apply, they can see what our programs are, or they can request information.
1:24:27.3 Beth Elman: And so just trying to make it as easy as possible. Maybe if they're reading through a page, they don't see exactly what they want, or they have more questions, we make it really easy for them to get to that answer. Another component of that that we implemented was the, an AI chat bot on our site, knowing that the institution isn't open and available 24/7, that we have staff here to answer questions and knowing that our students were looking for information, or our potential students were looking for information after 8:00 PM. And so having that chat bot integrated with our sites allowed us to be able to, one, see what questions they're asking, what information are they needing, are there pages that we can be making changes to on our site to provide the right information that they're missing when they're asking those questions. But also that we can get that answer to them immediately, they don't have to wait for somebody to see their question the next day. We've in real time provided the answer or directed them to where they need to go to get the information that they're looking for. So that's been really, really important in molding that student experience they are experience with our website, but using the different tools that we got from TrendyMinds to allow us to be able to build that into everything that we're doing.
1:25:37.1 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah. But I think it's such an important reminder, we can't expect to just pull on one lever, do one thing and expect transformation to happen. You have to do the optimization for mobile, you have to add the AI chat bot, you have to do a good analysis of all your websites to determine, if it really is optimized for search engines and all of that. One of the additional things you all did, that we haven't had a chance to talk about yet, was you launched a marketing campaign called Get To It. When I logged onto your website, it was like bam, right there in your face, I think it looks awesome tell us about the marketing campaign.
1:26:15.6 Beth Elman: So, Get To It campaign was a really kind of a fun campaign to get together and it's just allowed us to really put the student in the center, what's their experience going to be like, what's their dream? What did they want to do? And, as the community college alum myself, I think about how Iowa Lakes put me on my path to where I am today, and all the different experiences that I've had. When I think about each student, whether they're here for a career or technical program, or whether they're going to transfer onto a four-year university or other institution, we always want to make sure that we're putting them onto that path to success and what does that look like for them. But we invite them to get to it, their tomorrow is their tomorrow, and they're the ones who get to make the decisions about their future, and that's what Get To It is really about, your degree, your career, Iowa Lakes and we're here to put them on their path to their future.
1:27:09.2 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah. Campaigns by definition are kind of time limited, time sensitive. How long do you see the campaign going on for?
1:27:16.7 Beth Elman: Generally. So, I've been at Iowa Lakes, going on seven years now. So, when I came in, I knew we needed a lot of transformation at the time, but we just did minor tweaks, we just did the things that we needed to do to get us kind of up and running and moving forward. But generally, I feel like a campaign like this would have maybe a three-to-five-year shelf life. I think it would still feel right within an admission cycle, thinking about the longevity that sometimes happens especially in higher ed or at a community college, it takes longer to make that decision. And so, usually about a three-year cycle is what I talk to our admissions team about for a student once they enter the funnel, from beginning to end. And so, three to five years, I feel is about an appropriate time for a campaign. So, after that point, we'll revamp and figure out what our next steps are and what that would look like as we move forward at that time.
1:28:10.6 Dakota Pawlicki: That's, really wonderful. And again, I encourage folks to go check it out, I think it's pretty snazzy. Certainly, if I lived in Iowa, I know it'd certainly work for me. And we were talking before we started recording just about the kind of change process that has to go into this and the internal resources. We've even addressed it a little bit on the show itself, talking about the conditions that need to be in place in a community college, like leadership and a good vision and you have also mentioned too, about how many community colleges, especially rural serving community colleges, typically have smaller staff and many people are doing multiple jobs, I guess, in the higher ed sector too, we also have the kind of public versus private debate ongoing, there are a lot of private colleges that can dump tons and tons of money into marketing and into this kind of work, whereas a traditional public college might have fewer resources. Have you noticed those kinds of trends as well across the industries that you serve? And is there something greater that we need to be focusing on around creating the conditions for more community colleges like Iowa Lakes to be able to do this kind of work?
1:29:16.7 Emily Cornforth: Sure. Have we noticed it? Absolutely. We wouldn't be doing our jobs correctly or supporting our clients the right way if we hadn't noticed that. There's definitely the impact. We were recently helping in supporting a client, another community college and there was a lot of confusion in the room because it was community college and four-year universities institutions across a particular state. And it really is college is for everyone, college can be determined, you can define that a lot of different ways, it can be trade school, it can be community college, it can be four-year, it can be a workforce certificate. There's a lot of different ways that you can attain higher education beyond your high school diploma. And so it's not pigeonholing one versus the other, it's truly making it known that college is for everyone, we have to meet this prospective student where they are in that path. And so, to us, that is really something that we're always looking at when we start to entertain these types of conversations. It's which type of student? There's student types. If you think about personas, now we're creating these like student personas, like which student are we talking about and how do we meet them where they are on that journey is one of the biggest questions that's going to help us answer and determine how we get there to support the marketing team that we're working with.
1:30:46.9 Beth Elman: I want to jump in there, Emily when you bring up personas, that brings up another component of what we work through with this grant opportunity was, we were able to do some market research, not only for opportunities for growth, but also to learn more about who our students are. And we were able to identify six personas of what makes up the student enrolled here at Iowa Lakes. And that has been amazing to be able to gear our information towards those students specifically for who they are and what journey they're on and how we communicate with a student coming from an urban area may be different than how we are going to communicate with the student who's coming from a rural area and making sure that, what's important to one segment might be, not as important to another segment based off of what their enrollment interest is, based off of just regular demographic backgrounds. And so that's been really, really intriguing and helpful in helping us maintain what it is that we are going to do as we move forward.
1:31:52.1 Dakota Pawlicki: So, it sounds like there's an awful lot to do. Beth, if I was one of your counterparts at a different college and we're at a conference and you're telling me this kind of thing, and I'm like, how do I learn from Beth? Already my notebook is full. It's like I have data that I need to collect first and understand where my current state is and what kind of future state, I need to develop some kind of vision. I need to understand the personas of folks that we want to do some outreach. I need to do some audits; do I need help with this? It can be a lot, it can be a lot for folks, which is why we have professionals like you in your jobs. What advice do you have for your fellow colleagues that are out there that want to do this kind of similar work and to learn from you?
1:32:33.5 Beth Elman: Well, the first thing that I've always done is, making sure I have a good project management system, I think that that's essential tool to being able to keep on top of all of the things that come through our departments and making sure that, things are moving towards deadline and that we're able to assign tasks to who they need to go to and different things like that. Always mapping back our work to the strategic plan is really important as well, because that helps reinforce the importance of what we're doing and how it's going to leverage or catapult the college forward in other areas, not just in marketing, 'cause marketing touches everything. So those are some really key areas, really having that great understanding of who your student audience is and how you can help them get to where they need to go.
1:33:21.5 Beth Elman: And outside of just getting people through the enrollment process, it's helping them have a better understanding of financial aid and how they're going to pay for college and what their opportunities are for transfer, if that's what they're interested in, in workforce. So if they're interested in a specific segment of a career, helping connect them to the right resources so that they can get employed upon graduation, and that what they're potential for earnings is going to be a livable wage for them as they're looking to start a new life or restart their career or get started, whatever it is, but, just looking at those different components is really important. But, mobile engagement we implemented a student portal that just provides that access from their phone to all of the different resources that we have here at Iowa Lakes, whether it's paying their bill, access to the learning management system, scholarships, just really connecting as much as possible is super important.
1:34:24.5 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah. Make those connections, figure out who you need to be talking to and start from there, understanding what those students and people might need out of your institution out of the assets your institution has, including your websites and go from there. Emily, curious to kind of have the same kind of question. You work with a lot of different clients, if someone's listening now and saying, gosh I feel like, Beth, that we've done a bunch of little things and it's time for a full-on transformation. Where do you think step one is?
1:34:55.2 Emily Cornforth: So, I agree a lot of what Beth said is really important, but the one thing that I would add to what Beth was saying is going back to what something I said very early on, it's absolutely impressive what our community college partners are able to accomplish with the small staff that they have. They deserve an incredible pat on the back, and we're here to support them. They can't do it all, so take a look inside at your staff, what are your strengths? Where are your weaknesses? Where do you need the support? And then partnering with someone like TrendyMinds, we can come in and really start to say okay, sure, you need help with strategy, or you need help with maybe video production, or maybe it's your website and you need an SEO audit, there's all kinds of ways that we can come alongside and I always call it filling the gap.
1:35:55.5 Emily Cornforth: What is your teammate not able to do? Or they don't have the bandwidth to do at that point in time. You mentioned it earlier and like, it's very quick paced environment. We've got to go, go, go to meet these students where they are, so we don't want to have a slower turn time, we need to keep pushing forward as quickly as possible. And sometimes these teams can't do that all on their own. So that would be the biggest addition to what I would add to what Beth is saying is, what can't you do, what do you not have the bandwidth to do? And someone like a TrendyMinds, where an agency can really step in and fill that gap for your team. We fit right into their project management plan, we meet them where their timelines are, what they're trying to accomplish. And that's really important, being an extension of that marketing team. We want to make it as easy as possible, if we do that for them, it makes the process easier on the student to enroll and start being part of that college program.
1:36:56.3 Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, having a honest and specific conversation about the capacities we have and don't have, everyone's unique and to your point, there's a lot of things that we can build upon and strengths and uniquenesses that we can leverage and others that we uniquely need this kind of capacity. And then going out and figuring out, ‘Hey, who can best help me with this particular capacity?’ I think is always a great point.
Well, Beth Elman from Iowa Lakes Community College, Emily Cornforth from TrendyMinds. I want to thank you both for coming on and sharing your work with us. And also, I just want to encourage everyone to go check out both of your respective organizations. You've done incredible work together, it is obvious, it is clear, there are things written about it. So, Beth, you had mentioned that when you kicked it off, you started looking around at what other people have done and other exemplars and I would definitely put you all at the top of that list now. So, I hope others that are looking to do something similar go and check out the great things that you've all done. But thank you so much for joining us today and I hope you keep us in touch as more great things come out.
1:38:00.5 Emily Cornforth: Fantastic, thanks for hosting us.
1:38:03.9 Beth Elman: Yeah, thank you so much.
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1:41:28.9 Dakota Pawlicki: There are a lot of practical steps that can be taken by community colleges and others. Like Mary said at the top, be sure to start small. Shaping up a brand, investing in mobile optimization, and most importantly, listening to the people that matter most to your community college are all great starts. And for those that are supporting community colleges, like industry organizations, private sector partners, and state agencies, consider how you can help extend the capacity of community colleges to tell their own story. Community colleges are a critical part of America's talent system, and there's no reason they should be well kept secrets.
Thank you to our guests, Mary Laphen Pope, Stephanie Erdmann, Beth Elman, and Emily Cornforth for chatting with us. Our show is produced by Jacob Mann and me, Dakota Pawlicki with support from Matthew Jenkins, Amy Bartner, and the team at Site Strategics. Deborah Humphreys and Kevin Corcoran provide leadership for Lumina strategic efforts. As always, we hope that you subscribe and keep listening up, and if you ever have an idea for a new show, be sure to drop us a line at LuminaFoundation.org. Thank you so much for being with us, and we hope to see you next time.
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